Disclaimer:
Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 19: Stop Him
Dumbledore immediately knew something was wrong.
In a second, Harry had enough magic concentrated around him that it became visible at a single glance.
The floor of his office began to shake violently.
"Harry, what are you doing?! Stop this!" Dumbledore aimed his wand at the boy, who was looking back at him with fierce green eyes.
"He can't hear you, you damn old fool. Harry's consciousness is far away from here," the hat yelled.
"What?" Dumbledore exclaimed. What did the hat mean by that? Harry was obviously well awake.
'No matter. I need to stop this before it escalates.' He fired a powerful stunner at Harry, hoping to put him under control.
However, he would soon come to understand how much he had underestimated the situation.
His charm didn't even manage to touch Harry and was instead pushed away by a violent wave of pure magical energy emanating from the boy in front of him.
"Urggg!" Dumbledore groaned when his back hit the wall of his office, and he had to quickly move away, as his desk went flying.
This one hit the wall with tremendous force and shattered into pieces.
"No… You can't take him… you can't…" Harry was now standing up while muttering something under his breath.
The violent magical energy around him was becoming visibly stronger.
Dumbledore became seriously worried when he noticed the floor starting to crack.
"How can he have so much magic inside him?" The Headmaster was baffled. He had never seen something like this before.
"He doesn't…"
Dumbledore heard the voice coming from his side. When he turned his head, he saw the hat lying on the floor. It must have fallen from the table when this one went flying.
"Harry is merely funneling all the magic stored in Hogwarts. But if he is not stopped soon, he may turn into an Obscurial of a scale that the world has never seen."
"An Obscurial?!" The mere mention of that phenomenon made Dumbledore's blood run cold.
This was something that the Headmaster was unfortunately very familiar with. His poor sister Ariana had fallen victim to this dark piece of magic.
But if what the hat was saying was true, and Harry was somehow connected to the castle and channeling its magic, then the repercussions of him turning into an Obscurial would be beyond terrifying.
The resulting burst of energy alone would be enough to destroy the entire castle and kill everyone inside.
Dumbledore looked at Harry with dread as he spotted several black strands forming around him. "No…"
There was only one way to stop this… he had to kill the boy. It was either him or everyone else.
'How did this happen?' He wanted answers more than anything, but there was no time.
"I can stop him."
Dumbledore froze when he heard the hat's words. His eyes moved to it as it rested on the shaking ground.
"Pick me up and take me closer to him," the hat said.
Noting the Headmaster's hesitation, he finally snapped. "Hurry already, you old fool! Or do you want to kill him so badly?!"
This made Dumbledore react, and he went to pick up the hat.
In different circumstances, he would never have trusted the words coming out of it, but the situation was desperate enough to force his hand.
"What are you intending to do?" Dumbledore asked as he attempted to walk closer to Harry, which was proving to be much more difficult than he imagined.
The continuous bursts of energy being emanated from him were trying to push him back with tremendous force.
"Get me a bit closer," the hat demanded.
Dumbledore gritted his teeth and moved as close as he could. "Whatever you are going to do… you better hu—"
At that moment, he saw the hat in his arms opening its mouth and making a strange guttural sound.
A powerful vortex formed at the center of its maw, sucking everything inside.
At first, only small pieces of debris were attracted towards it, but soon, Dumbledore observed that all the magic surrounding Harry was also being sucked inside the small hat.
By the expression on his face, Harry appeared to be in intense pain, but he never made a sound of complaint.
His eyes remained open, staring toward Dumbledore, although the Headmaster was not too sure if the boy was conscious of anything that was happening right now, as his stare appeared to be empty, devoid of any emotion.
It was nothing like the Harry Potter that he had gotten to know over the past five years.
"Oh!" Dumbledore could now clearly see some of those disgusting-looking black strands of magic leaving Harry's body and being absorbed inside the hat.
Even though they never touched his skin, just by their proximity alone, Dumbledore could feel a deeply unpleasant sensation emanating from these black strands.
They were the magical representation of extremely negative emotions after all.
For a moment, he wondered how Harry could reach this state, but his focus quickly returned to reality. Keeping the hat steady as this one was doing its job was the most important thing right now.
At first, he didn't truly believe that this magical talking hat could do something to stop an Obscurial from transforming, but now that he was seeing it with his own two eyes, Dumbledore could not deny it.
"Incredible…"
He stared in shock as the vortex formed before the hat's mouth sucked in all the magic that had been surrounding Harry until there was none.
Only then did the phenomenon appear to stop completely, and Harry collapsed on the ground.
The hat then closed its mouth shut, sealing all that malignant energy inside it.
Dumbledore noted that the destruction of his office had come to a halt, and the ground had finally stopped shaking.
"It's over…" He sighed with relief.
"Pfff… for now." Smoke came out of the hat's mouth. "Old man, you'd better listen to what I have to say before doing something stupid again."
Dumbledore frowned, not liking the feeling of being scolded by a talking hat.
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